ΧΤΙΣΤΕΣ, ΝΟΙΚΟΚΥΡΕΣ ΚΑΙ Η ΟΙΚΟΔΟΜΗΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΣ

Sprawling beneath the Acropolis, modern Athens is commonly viewed in
negative terms: congested, ugly and monotonous. Builders, Housewives and
the Construction of Modern Athens questions this stereotype, reassessing
the explosive growth of postwar Athens through its most distinctive building
type: the polykatoikia (a small-scale multistory apartment block).
Theocharopoulou re-evaluates the polykatoikia as a low-tech, easily
constructible innovation that stimulated the postwar urban economy, triggering
the city’s social mid-twentieth-century transformation. The interiors of the
polykatoikia apartments reflect a desire for modernity as marketed to housewives through film and magazines. Regular builders became unlikely allies in
designing these polykatoikia interiors, enabling inhabitants to exert agency
over their daily lives and the shape of the postwar city.
This revised edition of Theocharopoulou’s study draws on popular media
as well as urban and regional planning theory, cultural studies and anthropology to examine the evolution of this phenomenon. Written in the light of
Greece’s recent financial crisis, the book’s updated Postscript considers the
role polykatoikia might play in building an equitable and sustainable
twenty-first-century city